{"id":393126,"date":"2025-09-02T23:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T23:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/393126\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T23:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T23:39:10","slug":"us-conducts-kinetic-strike-against-drug-boat-from-venezuela-killing-11-trump-says-us-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/393126\/","title":{"rendered":"US conducts \u2018kinetic strike\u2019 against drug boat from Venezuela, killing 11, Trump says | US foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US military has killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a \u201ca kinetic strike\u201d in the Caribbean Sea, the US president, Donald Trump<\/a>, has claimed amid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas.<\/p>\n

Trump<\/a> trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had \u201cjust, over the last few minutes, literally shot out \u2026 a drug-carrying boat\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s more where that came from. We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country,\u201d the US president added.<\/p>\n

Later, Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, to offer further details of the operation, which he said had taken place on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United \u200bStates,\u201d he wrote, alongside footage<\/a> of the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this strike \u2026 Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!\u201d<\/p>\n

The development will add to fears over a possible military clash between Venezuelan and US troops after the US sent war ships and marines into the Caribbean last month as part of what Trump allies touted as an attempt to force Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian leader, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, from power.<\/p>\n

Officially, Trump\u2019s naval buildup is part of US efforts to combat Latin American drug traffickers, including a Venezuelan group called the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) which Trump officials accuse Maduro of leading.<\/p>\n

In August the US announced a $50m reward for Maduro\u2019s capture <\/a>\u2013 twice the bounty once offered for Osama bin Laden. In July, Trump signed a secret directive<\/a> greenlighting military force against Latin American cartels considered terrorist organizations, including the Venezuelan group.<\/p>\n

Republican party hawks and Trump allies have celebrated those moves as proof the White House is determined to end Maduro\u2019s 12-year rule. \u201cYour days are seriously numbered,\u201d Trump\u2019s former national security adviser Michael Flynn<\/a>, declared recently, encouraging Maduro to flee to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s allies have also claimed that a regime-change operation is afoot, with Maduro himself this week warning that White House hardliners were seeking to lead Trump into \u201ca terrible war\u201d that would harm the entire region.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr President Donald Trump, you need to take care because Marco Rubio<\/a> wants to stain your hands with blood \u2013 with South American, Caribbean blood [and] Venezuelan blood. They want to lead you into a bloodbath \u2026 with a massacre against the people of Venezuela,\u201d Maduro said.<\/p>\n

But many experts are skeptical the US is planning a military intervention. \u201cThe idea of there being an invasion, I don\u2019t believe to be true,\u201d James Story, the US\u2019s top diplomat for Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, said last week. He said Trump generally opposed \u201cmeddling militarily in the affairs of other countries\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ramsey agreed. \u201dThis is not a deployment focused on regime change. This may be an attempt to signal to disaffected elements of the military in Venezuela that now is the time to rise up against Maduro. But we\u2019ve seen that approach be tried and \u200bfail repeatedly over \u200bthe last 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsey said the tough talk belied the fact that Trump had actually relaxed its stance towards Venezuela. Sanctions had been softened in recent weeks. The Trump administration<\/a> was \u201cactively coordinating with \u200bthe Maduro regime on deportation flights\u201d, about two of which are landing at Venezuela\u2019s main international airport each week.<\/p>\n

\u200bRamsey believed that the military mobilization was partly an attempt \u201cto throw some red meat to a part of Trump\u2019s base that has been dissatisfied with the reality of sanctions relief\u201d and what it perceived as his soft policy towards Maduro.<\/p>\n

Ramsey described the region where the vessel was attacked as \u201ca target-rich environment\u201d when it came to drug traffickers. \u201cThere are plenty of go-fast boats transporting cocaine through the southern Caribbean, and I think ultimately Washington is more interested in signalling than in actually engaging in any kind of military action inside Venezuela territory.\u201d Trump said those killed in Tuesday\u2019s operation were members of the Tren de Aragua, Venezuela\u2019s most notorious crime group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US military has killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a \u201ca kinetic strike\u201d in the Caribbean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-393126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115137345222017937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}